A top government scientist engaged in research misconduct, NIH finds

A National Institutes of Health investigation has found research misconduct by one of its top neuroscientists, the agency said Thursday.

In a statement, the NIH said the findings involve images in two studies co-authored by Dr. Eliezer Masliah, who in 2016 joined the agency's National Institute on Aging as its neuroscience division director.

NIH said images or “figure panels” that represented different experimental results were reused or relabeled in the publications. NIH said it would notify the two scientific journals of the findings “so that appropriate action can be taken.”

Masliah has long studied damage to synapses – junctions where brain cells communicate – in neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. He has published numerous scientific papers while at NIH and previously as a researcher at the University of California, San Diego.